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Walker is the founder of ColumbusUnderground.com and co-founder of TheMetropreneur.com along with his wife and business partner Anne Evans. Walker has turned local media from a hobby into a full time career over the past decade and serves on multiple boards and committees throughout the community.

This is really a surprise. Especially because last week i started seeing commercials for them on tv (fox 28 mostly) for the first time i can remember. Also because whenever I am at the mall it is pretty busy. Here’s the link to the business first article: http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2010/03/29/daily7.html?ed=2010-03-29&ana=e_du_pub which says that the Columbus location was one of the best performing in the chain, looks like things aren’t going to well for sega these days…

Anne wrote >>
well, there’s a card with money on it I can just throw away.

I’m glad I didn’t buy one! I was a little irritated that Vic’s left their gift certificates available for purchase, knowing they weren’t going to be honoring them after the end of the month. Anybody want one? I can’t possibly use all 4 in the next 2 days.

Anne wrote >>
well, there’s a card with money on it I can just throw away.

I’m glad I didn’t buy one! I was a little irritated that Vic’s left their gift certificates available for purchase, knowing they weren’t going to be honoring them after the end of the month. Anybody want one? I can’t possibly use all 4 in the next 2 days.

I thought they backed off that? Looking back in that thread it seems they are pretty much honoring them, as of now.

Rus,

Just what we need…

But yeah, what could the property managers do with that space? Banquets and meetings come to mind but you already have competition with the Hilton, Shriners and whatever else is up that way.

Superhuge nightclub?

The only access to their basement space is through the main Gameworks entrance. You could subdivide the space out but who would take it?

Is Gameworks owned by SEGA nowadays? When it opened I remember it was part of Dreamworks (the movie studio). I read an interview with Spielberg where he said “video games are the future of entertainment and blahblahblah.”

Don’t throw out your giftcards or playcards to Gameworks. According to their website, you can email them at questions@gameworks.com to try and get a refund on the balance of any giftcards, but as for the playcards, they just say to visit one of their other locations to redeem. The Columbus Gameworks is one of seven that Sega has closed during restructuring, with the hopes that some of the locations may reopen in the future, according to the press release I read.

Not surprising, really. It’s sad to hear they closed one of their best performing stores, but as Walker said – folks play video games on their own consoles, computers, or devices these days — it’s been a long time since the best games first came out in arcades, and you had to wait for the home version.

Games like DDR and all the ticket/prize-type stuff may have prolonged the inevitable, but for as much as I lived in them as a teen, arcades are fairly irrelevant these days.

As for the space, well it seems an oddly shaped space – with the basement and all. I don’t think it’ll be *easy* for them to fill, but a mid-range clothing store might work. Like H&M for example, might have been a good fit, if they weren’t already moving into the smaller space by Shadowbox.

This space won’t need to be filled by just one tenant or one/multiple tenant(s) who must accept the current configuration. Easton management has shown little hesitation in completely revamping space to accommodate new tenants. They razed significant portions of Virgin to make room for C&B and completely replaced the old Discovery Store on the back quad for new retail. I think they’ve learned some lessons about remaining static from older malls, and will make significant infrastructure moves to keep their product viable.

@LBOWACC – that seems to be the standard lifespan of a Jillian’s. Open up, be all the rage for a year, lead the parent company towards massive expansion, fall out of favor as the in-place, become unsustainable because they’re too large. The Columbus one was in the property that now contains Brothers and Gaswerks in the Arena District. The company filed Chapter 11 back in 2004-ish, some of the locations were sold to Dave & Busters, while a few including Boston became independently owned and operated.

dru Says: This space wonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t need to be filled by just one tenant or one/multiple tenant(s) who must accept the current configuration. Easton management has shown little hesitation in completely revamping space to accommodate new tenants.

+1

I doubt it will sit empty for long either. Management at Easton is very smart in their reconfigurations, and I can see this quickly flipping into something else within a year.

It’s that basement portion which will pose a challenge. I don’t doubt something will take over, it just seems the space is a bit more work than the free standing structures Easton changed or razed to suit new tenants.

Gameworks Easton Closed!
How many more things can Les Wexner ruin before people will stop shopping at his areas. A management (Easton Management) friend of mine said that the new lease agreement was asking for 25% of sales as rent. So by being greedy, we loose a great saturday night evening of fun. You know what is really funny, if something closes at Easton it seems to get relocated to Polaris…Perhaps we will see a Gameworks Polaris opening in the future……I sure hope so!

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Walker is the founder of ColumbusUnderground.com and co-founder of TheMetropreneur.com along with his wife and business partner Anne Evans. Walker has turned local media from a hobby into a full time career over the past decade and serves on multiple boards and committees throughout the community.